The investigating judge in the Beirut port explosion case, Judge Tarek Bitar, has completed his strategy to resume the investigation that has been stalled for 30 months. He has prepared a list of names of defendants, including politicians, security leaders, and judges, to summon and interrogate them soon. According to informed sources at the Beirut Palace of Justice, Bitar is aware that there are political, judicial, and even security obstacles preventing these individuals from appearing before him, and the reasons that have kept them from attending since the end of 2021 still exist. Additionally, nothing has changed in the stance of the Public Prosecution, which refuses to cooperate with him, especially after the proposal made by the Cassation Prosecutor Judge Jamal Al-Hajjar to exclude politicians and judges from the case to clear the way for resuming the investigation and procedures to unlock this case was rejected.
The same sources confirm to "Anbaa" that although the investigating judge is displeased with the conditions set by Al-Hajjar and categorically refuses to fragment the case or isolate politicians and judges from it, he appreciates the latter's genuine intentions and his wish for this case to reach a happy conclusion. The sources indicate that Bitar "will not embarrass Al-Hajjar in the actions he will take and will not request the Public Prosecution to inform politicians and judges of their summons to hearings, as this may push Al-Hajjar to withdraw from this case, given that three of the defendants are from his hometown of Shhimeh: former Cassation Prosecutor Judge Ghassan Oueidat, former Lebanese Army Intelligence Colonel Joudat Oueidat, and customs official Hani Haj Shihada."
The sources report that the investigating judge "will not put Al-Hajjar in a difficult position on this issue and will not hand him a resignation card, as his resignation will complicate matters significantly and lead to another freeze of the investigation, especially since most of the judges in the Public Prosecution either recused themselves or were rejected and contested in this case."
As the anniversary of August 4 approached, sources close to Bitar indicated that "he will begin in the coming days to send notifications to the defendants through direct judicial assistants, and he will not announce this before executing the notifications to avoid any political exploitation."
The sources assert that the investigating judge "is relying on the legal reasoning he prepared a year and a half ago, in which he considered that the investigating judge cannot be recused or contested, given that every case referred to the higher council is issued by a decree from the Council of Ministers, considering that the crimes referred to the higher council, including the port explosion, constitute an assault on the security of the state; thus, all immunities are lifted from officials who are now under suspicion, regardless of their positions and functions."
While Bitar continues to work behind the scenes, visiting his office at the Palace of Justice weekly and taking some routine measures, it is expected that his office will become a center of events in Lebanon in the coming days, reigniting the struggle over the legality of the procedures he will resort to. Regardless of what the high-profile defendants decide, the investigating judge remains committed to issuing the indictment decision before the end of the current year.
